What are the two or three digit numbers that sometimes follow the record
company master or matrix numbers in the dead wax of post WWII 78s and 45s
for the indy labels? I am not talking about DELTA numbers or RITE pressing
codes which are easy to spot and have been, to a point, cataloged. Like
DELTAS these numbers never show up on the label. You don't see these with
records pressed by the major labels. Are they put there by the engineer
cutting the lacquer, the electroplating shop, or the pressing plant? Do they
represent the customer requesting the service or the shop performing it?
For Sun they are consistently "72" in the same hand.
For Rich-R'Tone in the late 1940s and early 1950s they vary: 30, 36, 10V,
154 (with and with a "C")
That same "30" shows up on Jiffy of Monroe, La in 1956.
Bama is "32"
Atlantic doesn't seem to have them.
Thanks,
Jay Bruder